Viktor Uspaskich

Viktor Uspaskich (24 July 1959-) was a Russian-born Lithuanian entrepeneur and politician who was the founder and leader of the liberal Labor Party of Lithuania.

Biography
Viktor Uspaskich was born in Urdoma, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union on 24 July 1959, and he arrived in the Lithuanian SSR in 1985. He worked as a welder in the gas industry, and he lived in Finland from 1985 to 1987 before returning to Lithuania. He founded the Efektas company in 1990 and took Lithuanian citizenship in 1991, and he became a millioniare through importing gas from Gazprom in addition to flourishing enterprises in the food production and animal fodder industries. From 1997 to 2003, he served as Chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Employers, and he founded his own liberal Labor Party of Lithuania in 2003. He served as Minister of Economic Affairs from 2003 to 2006. In 2013, he was sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud, but he claimed legal immunity as a member of the Lithuanian Parliament and, from May 2014, a member of the European Parliament.